Medical procedures are available for treating a variety of cardiovascular maladies, such as cardiac arrhythmias including atrial fibrillation, and other irregularities in the transmission of electrical impulses through the heart. As an alternative to open-heart surgery, many medical procedures are performed using minimally invasive surgical techniques, where one or more slender implements are inserted through one or more small incisions into a patient's body. Such procedures may involve the use of catheters or probes having multiple sensors, electrodes, or other measurement and treatment components to treat the diseased area of the heart, vasculature, or other tissue. Minimally-invasive devices are desirable for various medical and surgical applications because they allow for precise treatment of localized discrete tissues that are otherwise difficult to access. For example, catheters may be easily inserted and navigated through the blood vessels and arteries, allowing non-invasive percutaneous access to areas of the body selected for treatment, while other minimally-invasive probes or instruments may be inserted into small openings and directed through targeted anatomy without significant impact or disruption to surrounding tissue.
One such example of a minimally invasive therapy involves the treatment of cardiac arrhythmias or irregular heartbeats in which physicians employ specialized cardiac assessment and treatment devices, such as mapping catheters and ablation catheters, to gain access to, diagnose, and treat interior regions of a patient's body. Such devices may include energized electrodes or other ablation assemblies to create lesions or other anatomical effects that disrupt or block electrical pathways through the targeted tissue.
In the treatment of cardiac arrhythmias, a specific area of cardiac tissue having aberrant electrically conductive pathways is typically initially identified for subsequent treatment. This localization or identification can include first using a medical device such as a mapping catheter to obtain a baseline electrophysiological map of electrical activity in selected tissue. After mapping and diagnosing aberrant tissue, a physician may decide to treat the patient by ablating the tissue. An ablation procedure may involve creating one or more lesions to electrically isolate tissue believed to be the source of an arrhythmia. One type of ablation is the cryotreatment or cryogenic ablation, which entails creating cold temperatures at specific regions of the body or contacting tissue with cold treatment devices to transfer heat from the targeted tissue to the cryogenic element, thus cooling and/or ablating the tissue. Other treatments may include radiofrequency tissue ablation or electroporation procedures.
Such treatments may require first repositioning or removing a mapping catheter before placing a second medical device or ablation catheter into contact with the tissue to be treated. Following the ablation procedure, the physician may desire to asses or confirm the efficacy of the treatment by obtaining a second electrophysiological map of the tissue region. This subsequent mapping procedure may involve removal or manipulation of the ablation medical device to allow the desired positioning of the mapping device adjacent to the tissue that was previously treated.
Each device exchange or manipulation represents an added risk to the patient as inserting and removing catheters in the vasculature carries a number of inherent risks, possibly including embolism. Exchanging these various catheters during a procedure can cause inaccuracies or movement in the placement and location of the distal tip a device with respect to the tissue to be mapped or ablated, and may further add to the time required to perform the desired treatment. These potential inaccuracies and extended duration of the particular procedure further increase the risk to the patient undergoing treatment. Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide an integrated apparatus and method of use thereof for both diagnosing aberrant electrical pathways and treating those detected pathways.
In addition, placing and maintaining a medical device in the desired position with correct alignment and positive contact with the selected tissue may enhance a mapping and ablation treatment and its likelihood of success. It is therefore desirable to provide apparatus and method of use to verify the position of a medical device, positive contact and alignment with the selected tissue, and to contemporaneously evaluate the medical treatment.